The Sorcerer's Apprentice
by DasMervin
Summary: An alternate POV of "Philosophy" where we find out just what Leah and Castiel got up to after the boys left for food and beer.


**Title:** The Sorcerer's Apprentice

**Author:** Mrs. Hyde and das_mervin

**Fandom:** Twilight/Supernatural

**Rating:** R for some language, themes, and one very pervy angel

**Word Count:** 5,875

**Summary:** An alternate POV of "Philosophy," where we find out just what Leah and Castiel got up to after the boys left for food and beer.

**Note from Das Mervin:** Well, after Mrs. Hyde and I wrote "Philosophy," like any self-respecting shipper I wanted to know what went on behind that couch. So as a gift to me and with input about what I wanted, Mrs. Hyde wrote up an alternate POV of "Philosophy" from Leah's point of view. Well, from the reviews on "Philosophy" and "The Wedding Crashes," it sounds as thought plenty of people also want to see a little more Leah/Cas action, and I believe in sharing, so I got permission from her to post this giftfic for everyone else to see.

As such, here is a little shippage and a little (almost) smut in the form of what went on while Sam and Dean went on their beer and food run, in what you'll find to be a most appropriately titled fic "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". All I can say is this for the boys: thank God the light by their hotel was green.

**Note from Mrs. Hyde: **As Mervin mentioned above, she laid out some ideas for me and I turned it into a fic for her, an alternate POV with a little expansion of the Leah/Cas ship (and the necessary smut). Some of the text and dialogue you'll notice as having been adapted/reworked from "Philosophy." We hope you enjoy it.

**Disclaimer: "Supernatural" is the property of Kripke Enterprises and Warner Bros. Television. The Twilight Saga is the property of Stephenie Meyer and Little, Brown and Co. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made from this work.**

* * *

True to her word to Sam and Dean, Leah lingered on the couch for only a few minutes before hauling herself to her feet to gather up the empty beer bottles littering the table in front of her. She was generally of the opinion she had done well for herself, working on her own or with the boys to help save people, having a purpose—but it was moments like these that she knew she hadn't entirely managed to shed her past. As she wiggled her arms to accommodate one more loose bottle, she suddenly had a flashback of doing the same with a mountain of Coke cans at Sam's house—which had once been her house—while the rest of the pack all sat around the table roaring at the basketball game. They were laughing, talking, eating—and she was cleaning up after them, going back into the kitchen with her cousin because she wasn't welcome out there with the men.

"Man, this is making me all homesick," she couldn't help but sourly remark out loud, juggling the armful of bottles and weaving her way to the trashcan in the tiny kitchen. "Send the menfolk to go out and be manly, keep the women inside, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen! Good times." Her words were airy, but even she could hear the bitterness beneath them. Shaking her head, she just opened her arms to send her load of bottles clattering and clanking into the trash.

As she turned around to go collect another armful, she found Castiel looking curiously at her. "I thought that you were one of the warriors of your tribe," he said, watching her unblinkingly as she scooped up another half-dozen bottles.

"Well, I am," she said, and then with snort corrected herself, saying, "Or was, anyway." She let another armful of glass smash into the trashcan. Her mouth screwed up with that old familiar resentment as she looked down at the brown shards. "But I got designated 'dead weight' by the rest of the pack, and that was that." She rubbed her hand on the back of her neck, tendrils of her short hair tickling her skin; it was getting long, and she'd have to cut it soon. She ambled across the little room to pick up the last bottle hiding on the end table by the lamp. As she looked up at Cas, who was still watching her seriously, she felt her jaw unclenched just enough to smile at him despite her old, smoldering anger. "So, that meant lots of staying at home doing nothing while everyone else went out to hunt." She turned to make a lazy lay-up with the last bottle, watching with a measure of satisfaction as it arced through the air and landed with a lovely crash with the rest of them.

She turned around again, and found Cas looking at her with his characteristic look of honest, innocent confusion—and she couldn't help but smile down at his concerned little face. "Why?" he asked her.

She huffed a bit and then shrugged, and when she answered, she kept her voice bright; she had lots of practice faking it, after all. "Oh, probably because I'm a girl—girls have cooties, don't you know."

His blank expression made it clear he _didn't_ know, and her smile twisted wryly, a humorless chuckle escaping her. She shook her head and stared at her feet for a moment, but when she looked back up, he was still watching her, quiet and waiting. And as she looked into those ageless eyes, she for some reason remembered that she was talking to an _angel_, and without warning she felt herself begin to speak, to say what she hadn't ever said aloud. "Honestly? I have no idea."

And that was the truth. She flopped down on the couch next to him. Perhaps it was because he was an angel, or maybe it was just for the sake of honesty, but she felt compelled to admit everything. "I mean, I wasn't very happy when I first changed," she confessed. "I had a life, a family, and a future, and turning into a wolf ruined all of that.' Her voice grew soft, but before she trailed off completely she said, "But I really never could figure out why they were all so determined to hate me."

He was quiet, staring back at her with his seemingly endless patience, and it was as if she'd lanced a sore, opening up all that festering bitterness, and she couldn't help but keep going. "It's crazy—I was in their heads half the time, sharing their thoughts—and it's like it only went one way." She rubbed her forehead in agitation, saying, "I couldn't help but care about what they cared about, but they couldn't give two shits about me." She curled her fingers into a fist in her hair. "And when I think about it, when I try to make it make sense, I can't, and I just get so _angry_—" She felt her throat working furiously and broke off, taking a deep breath before turning so she was facing him. She drew up her knees, the close, comforting position she'd always taken since upset, even since she was a little girl. "I mean, how can people _be_ like that?" she asked him.

He looked down for a moment, pressing his lower lip against his teeth, before meeting her gaze again and quietly answering, "I don't know." Leah thought that maybe she should feel disappointment that he didn't have all the answers—he was an angel, after all—but she didn't. It was more like resignation—not to mention a strange sort of camaraderie; angel or no, he was in the same boat as everyone else. He only confirmed it when he added, "But I am not the best source for advice on human behavior."

Leah couldn't help but chuckled as he echoed her thoughts. "Yeah, maybe you're right," she said. She tilted her head, considering him. She hadn't spoken about her pack before—not really, not like this—to anyone. "But you are pretty good at the whole 'Father Confessor' thing, though," she observed. She braced her elbow on the back of the couch and propped her head on her hand, offering him a friendly smile. "Guess that comes with the job, huh?"

Cas regarded her steadily, tilting his head in acknowledgement. "I suppose it does," he agreed. "People have been praying to me for millennia."

She couldn't help but grin—seriously, who said stuff like that? And who else could say it with such total frankness and actually be telling the truth? "Ah—yeah, well, you would have a lot of practice at being a good listener," she said, amused.

He turned away at that, looking down at his folded hands, his demeanor somehow becoming even more serious. "I used to think so," he said quietly, "but since coming down here, since living among humans and not just watching them from above, I'm not so sure I am any more."

She was touched by his honest confession, and she couldn't help but try to reassure him. "Have you _seen_ Sam and Dean?" she asked with a snort. "Those two have all the sensitivity of a pair of bricks. _And_ they won't shut up—your problems take a back seat to their issues every time." She smiled encouragingly at him. "Trust me, just sitting and letting people talk at you like you do is just about all it takes to make you a good listener." Hell, she was proof enough of that—to say nothing of the way the boys always unloaded on him.

Cas gazed back at her. "Perhaps. But that doesn't mean that I can understand what I hear," he admitted.

She blew a breath through her nose and looked to the side, her lips twisting sardonically. "You and me both, buddy," she commiserated. She was quiet for a moment, thinking, and then slowly said, "Maybe that's just it. They don't care if you understand—they just want somebody to dump on." She looked back at him to find him staring down at his hands again, looking as morose as it was possible for him to look without changing his expression. "But, hey," she added with forced lightness, nudging his shoulder. "Who said people—or wolves—make sense?"

Cas looked up at her and furrowed his brow; she stifled a laugh when she realized that he treating her rhetorical question as literal. "No one," he finally said, having at last come to the conclusion that the question was meant to ask in the first place, and Leah grinned at him.

"Nope," she agreed. "I guess that's all there is to the other wolves in my pack—they're just a bunch of dicks."

A flicker of what passed for amusement crossed the angel's otherwise impassive face. "Yes—I believe Sam and Dean have similar sentiments toward my brothers."

"Well, screw them, then" she said, and she could honestly say that she meant it. She was beyond all that now, and she didn't need to look back. And so she told him so: "I don't care if my pack thinks I'm just a stupid female who can't do anything but have the vapors and get in the way."

"You shouldn't," Cas said seriously, "since that is clearly a fault in their perception." She turned to look at him with a measure of surprise. He was still speaking, in that same calm and yet utterly sincere tone in which he said everything. "You've been working on and off with Sam and Dean and myself for nearly two years, and in that time have shown yourself to be quite driven and capable. You are a definite asset to our work—and your sex has nothing to do with it."

Leah blinked, her mouth slightly open. Then an unfamiliar warmth began to spread slowly in her chest, and her eyes pricked a little as she realized that she couldn't remember when she'd last received any sort of praise that wasn't a backhanded insult, when she'd last been told that she did something well, when she'd last been treated like she was _worth_ something. Her heart gave a quick little beat; she felt her cheeks heat up and bashful smile curve her lips, and all she could say was, "Thank you."

He simply nodded, clearly unaware that his matter-of-fact statement had nearly made her want to cry. He was sitting perfectly still, in the way that she'd only ever seen a vampire sit, staring off into nothing and content to do so. Leah, on the other hand, couldn't make herself sit still; she felt vaguely fidgety, and she kept looking at Cas and then looking away again with her face flushing. It was slowly dawning on her that while she had always found him cute in his own pedantic, dorky way, his ingenuously charming words had just pushed her over the edge into a full-blown crush. She very nearly laughed at herself when she realized it; of all the pointless, inaccessible crushes to have, and she had to go and fall for an _angel_, sitting next to her in all his holy cluelessness.

But his words had left her happy and giddy and brimming with a confidence that she hadn't felt in years. He was oblivious, yes—but she had learned that it was possible to snap him out of it with a direct approach.

There was only one thing for it. "So…" she tossed out idly, "you wanna make out?"

Cas turned his head to face her; rather as she had suspected, there was no surprise, just that blank look of confusion again. "Make out what?" he asked.

She grinned, unable to suppress a rather foolish-sounding giggle. "You know—make out." She raised her eyebrows; he clearly had no idea what she was talking about, and it was adorable. "You, me, here unsupervised, I like you, you like me, let's get this party started?" she hedged, gesturing at them both. "You know?"

The attempted explanation just seemed to be confusing him further. "There is no party," he said, the furrow in his brow deepening.

Leah looked away, pursing her lips to hold in her laughter. "Okay, so you don't know," she said, as much to herself as anyone, before turning back to him. _In for a penny_, she thought. "Well—allow me to demonstrate." She slowly unfolded her legs and eased in close, sliding her hand up his arm and over his shoulder as she did.

His puzzled expression finally gave way when she heaved herself up to sit astride his narrow lap. His eyes widened first with surprise and then alarm as she slid her arms around his neck, curling her fingers through his hair at the nape. Something sparked in those guileless baby blues of his—understanding, maybe—and they darted away for a moment before coming back her even as a slow smile spread across her face. She saw the tip of his tongue moisten his lips (which all of the sudden had become ridiculously sexy), and he seemed to be about to speak, but she cut him off by making her move, leaning in, pulling him close, and catching the curve of his bottom lip between her own.

It was chaste, as kisses go, and she kept it light, although she did give his lip a little tug as she pulled away. He was frozen (even more so than usual) when sat back, and she smiled at him, a bit embarrassed, but hopeful and excited all the same. "You know?" she prompted again.

Cas cocked his head, hardly more than a twitch, as his eyes flashed—and then she was on her back. Leah barely managed a squeak of surprise before he was on her, his mouth covering hers, one arm around her waist, his fingers tangling in her hair, his tongue rough and wet against her own. She couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't escape—she could only cling to him and ride out what she had unleashed.

He broke away as quickly as he'd begun. She stared up at him, shaken and breathless and quite forgetting to close her mouth. He was hovering over her, blinking rapidly, and he seemed to be as shocked by his sudden initiative as she was. His eyes were slightly crossed, and as he slowly focused on her where she lay panting beneath him, his dazed expression began to give way to one of embarrassment.

Leah closed her mouth, swallowed, and then said the first thing that came to mind: "Oh. So you _do_ know."

Now he looked positively ashamed of himself; he couldn't meet her eyes and started worrying on his lip, and after a moment he made to pull away.

That motion snapped Leah into action; in a flash, she reached up and grabbed the tie that was swinging between them. Cas stopped, his eyes meeting hers self-consciously, looking sweetly, adorably awkward. A simmering heat uncoiled in her belly. "Oh, no, you don't," she purred, giving him a slow, lazy smile. "This conversation just got interesting."

And she yanked him back down.

For one humiliating moment, she thought she'd made a terrible mistake, for when she leaned up to press her mouth to his again, he didn't move—but then he did.

Did he _ever_—he _seized_ her, pinning her beneath him and pressing her down into the cushions as he invaded her mouth with his tongue. He was entirely without finesse, but near wild in his eagerness; their chins bumped and their noses mashed together and his teeth clicked against hers, but he didn't seem to notice, much less care—and if he didn't, why should she?

Her hands scrabbled for purchase on the smooth fabric of his coat before she moved to bury her fingers in his hair; it was soft against her palms even as his stubble chafed against her cheeks. His lips were cool, but Leah burned hot enough for the both of them, her pulse pounding in her ears, and she wrapped her legs around him, holding him tight and close and pouring her heat and her breath into him.

The movements of Cas's mouth were clumsy, inexperienced, and she never would have thought she'd be so turned on by playing the part of the worldly older woman to the shy little innocent. Correction: inexperienced he may have been—but he sure as _hell_ wasn't shy! His hands were roaming feverishly over her body, had been since they'd started this, but once she got her legs around him, he'd made a beeline for her ass, grabbing her left cheek to pull her tight against him.

She couldn't be bothered with trying to unknot that nerdy tie of his; she just tugged at it until it was loose enough for her to get to his collar. She grunted in impatience; his finicky little shirt buttons were putting up a hell of a fight. It didn't help that her fingers promptly lost any dexterity when she felt his eager hands fumble their way up her stomach to grope at her tits.

He may not have needed to breathe, but she did. She managed to tear herself away, gasping, only to have to dodge as he dived right back down for her. "Easy!" she panted, but she was fairly certain that he didn't hear her, because he was coming at her again.

She seized a handful of his hair and yanked him to the side at the last minute, going this time for the pale skin of his throat where she'd managed to lay his collar open. The soft flesh was as cool as the rest of him, and there was no pulse, but she didn't need that to guide her as she nipped her way along his neck, rasping her tongue all the way up to his ear to suck the lobe into her mouth.

He was oddly still for a moment, panting hoarsely in her ear, but the scrape of her teeth suddenly seemed to mobilize him, and he reared back, jerking her head to the side and then falling on her neck, kissing, licking, biting, sucking, and drawing a long, low moan from her throat.

_Hallelujah_, she thought dimly. In some rational corner of her brain she wondered if she wasn't bucking for a lightning bolt to strike her for thinking such a thing at a time like this. But, given the fact that she currently had two handfuls of the cute little butt that Cas had been hiding under his coat, she figured that bit of blasphemy was the least of her worries right now.

She'd barely had time to catch her breath before she found her mouth once more covered in a furious kiss. His breath was still cool but his tongue was warm from where he'd tasted her. His hands were everywhere, and she wondered how on earth she'd gone from making Cas a flirty, half-serious proposition to flat on her back letting him have his way with her.

Well, two could play at that game. As he moved his wet mouth down the line of her throat, tugging ineffectually at her shirt and struggling to dip his tongue beneath the material to her collarbones, she unlocked her legs from around his middle. Bracing her feet and her back against the couch, she gathered her strength and with one quick motion that even a vampire would envy, she flipped them over.

He landed on his back with a _woof_ as the air was driven out of him. Leah sat up, astride his hips with a smug smile—which was promptly wiped off her face as he lunged at her, his hands wrapping around the back of her neck to pull her down to meet him halfway, his mouth hot and frantic against hers.

_I've created a monster._ Not that she was complaining, but she guessed she'd better set about soothing the savage beast. She ran her hands up into his hair and down along the sides of his face to his neck where she resumed the battle of the buttons. It was easier from a logistics standpoint, on top as she was, but Cas, who was apparently a _very_ quick study, was doing his best to distract her (he'd obviously realized that her being on top also improved the logistics of stealing second again). Well, she'd show him—she still had a few new tricks to teach him.

Leah couldn't help her victorious smile against his mouth as she finally opened the last button and parted his shirt, tugging the tails out of the waistband of his pants. She pulled away and, with a dexterity that surprised even her, managed to hold him at bay long enough to get that silly tie over his head. With a smirk, she draped it over her own neck and waggled her eyebrows down at him.

Cas's grip on humor was tenuous at the best of times; unsurprisingly, he had no time for that now and just grabbed her shoulders to pull her back down again. His kissing had lost none of its urgency, but had gained enough skill to make it very difficult for her to think clearly.

She ran her hands over the tantalizing expanse of flesh beneath her, from the narrow shoulders and chest to the ridiculously soft little belly. She wanted to see what she had revealed, to taste it, sink her teeth into him, but he was clinging to her like her own little holy barnacle, holding her tight as if he feared she would get away.

Leah squirmed against him; he followed her every movement, pressing every inch of his body against hers, and as he did so, she realized the littlest angel here wasn't so little after all—the evidence of that was pressing firmly between her thighs.

She badly wanted to ask him "so, is that your halo in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me," just to see what he would do, but when she tried to sit up, he wouldn't let her go, just followed her up from the couch, refusing to release her mouth no matter how she twisted. So, half in desperation and half in sheer, retaliatory naughtiness, she ground her hips down against him.

Cas didn't just let go—he _flew_ backwards, landing on the cushions with a thump, his eyes squinched shut and his mouth opened in a silent cry, his hands clutching at the upholstery hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

_Ha_, she thought smugly and, just for the hell of it, did it again. This time his back arched upward like a bow, his hands flailing about until they found her hips, where they gripped her so tightly as to be almost painful, and a tiny, breathy grunt escaped him, the first and only sound he'd made this whole time. She chuckled, relishing the pulse of heat that radiated outward from where she rubbed herself against him through her jeans, and leaned down and whispered in his ear, "So _that's_ how you make the herald angel sing."

Not waiting for a response, she just shimmied downward to bring her lips to his chest, pressing openmouthed kisses and firm strokes of her hands over his chest and ribs and stomach all the way down to his belt. She poked her tongue into his navel, enjoying the way he spasmed beneath her, entirely at her mercy, his hands clenching restlessly on her shoulders as she dug her thumbs into the hollows of his hipbones. She started back upward, dragging her tongue along the length of his torso, leaving a wet, winding trail in her wake. She paused just long enough to graze her teeth over his tiny brown nipple and then to soothe it with her tongue, delighting in the helpless jerking the action elicited, and then nibbled her way up his neck and his chin to reclaim his mouth with her own searing kiss.

The return to the familiar seemed to galvanize him; he'd mostly stayed still for her explorations, but not any more. His tongue thrust forward to curl against hers, and as his hands slid over her, they paused briefly where her shirt had come untucked from her jeans—and in the next instant he was grappling furiously with her hem, yanking it out of her waistband as if he'd only just realized that there was skin beneath her clothes for him to touch.

Then he was wildly trying to force his hands under her shirt, but was thwarted for lack of room, and Leah cursed herself for wearing such a tight shirt today—why hadn't she worn a loose tee with room to maneuver? His breath in her mouth was coming in short, frustrated bursts, his hips pushing upwards against her, his arms wiggling where he had managed to trap them both in her shirt in his impatience to get under it, when with a sharp jerk and a hail of buttons, he simply ripped it open.

She made a noise of surprised approval, and then he was dragging his mouth away and down her neck, pushing her to sit up and following her so he could play his lips and tongue all over her. His amusingly smooth hands were at odds with his rough caresses, his stubble coarse but his lips soft, and when she felt them close over her nipple, drawing in into his mouth and between his teeth through the orange cotton that covered it, she could only hold his head close and move her hands restlessly through his hair and moan throatily, murmuring, "Oh, yes, Cas, _yes_."

She rubbed her face in the rumpled hair atop his head, stroking his back where she imagined his wings would be, before forcing his mouth back up to hers. This time it was she who bore him back down on the couch, clenching her thighs tight around his slim hips as she greedily tasted him. He'd slid his hands over her stomach and around her back and further down, where they were now kneading her ass and pressing her downward into the rocking thrusts of his hips, the friction of the firmness pressing between her legs nearly unbearable even through the fabric of his pants and her jeans.

His thumbs hooked her waistband for a moment, and then in a burst of inventiveness on his part, his fingers were soon after forcing their way into her jeans too. With a dim flare of alarm—she didn't want her pants to wind up like her shirt—she quickly reached down to flip open her fly. With her jeans thus loosened, he wasted no time in sliding his hands beneath them to grip her buttcheeks (and she congratulated herself for wearing a thong today), gripping and grinding her against his straining erection.

Cas was still rocking, undulating and moving beneath her even as his mouth devoured every inch of her skin he could reach, and as the last remaining coherent part of her brain registered the fact that he was trying to push her jeans down over her hips, Leah realized that he wasn't showing any signs of stopping, and with a sudden click like a key in a lock she knew that she _wouldn't_ stop him, and she reached for his fly—

—a key in a lock—

—the door—

_SHIT!_

Her eyes flew open and she jerked away to sit up—and there in the doorway, their arms full of beer and food and with nonplussed expressions on their faces, stood Sam and Dean.

_Shit shit SHIT!_

They stared at her, and she stared back, and she found herself reminded of the time back when she was sixteen and her parents came home early and caught her making out with her first boyfriend Bobby Rawlins, and she crazily wondered if this was as bad as that had been. But when she felt Cas's hands skim up her torso to grab hold of her tits again _while they were watching_, she knew that this was so, _so_ much worse.

"Oh! Uh—hi, guys!" And that was the best she could come up with. But she was babbling, and she knew it, just as she knew there was absolutely no way she could hide this, not with Cas mauling her boobs in front of God and everybody, but she couldn't shut up. Her mouth always ran when she was embarrassed, and she was so far beyond merely embarrassed right now that she had nearly lapped herself.

"We—ah—we were just—" Her mind was blank as she stammered, trying to spit out something—_anything_—to explain herself, but whatever she had been about to say was cut off when the forgotten tie around her neck went taut and tight and she was pulled roughly downward. She landed with a smack against Cas's bare chest, and a helpless, mortified giggle escaped her as she turned her face up to look at him—only to have the briefest glimpse his fiery eyes before his mouth was on hers again.

Her eyes went wide with shock. _Oh, dear Jesus, he's not stopping!_ She was half-naked, the Winchesters were standing right there, and she had Cas's tongue down her throat—could this get any worse? She tore herself away, panting, "Cas—wait—" but he didn't seem to hear, just burying his face in her neck and biting down, making her gasp. Her hands pushed ineffectually against him, horrified giggles escaping her as he started to suck on the place he had bitten, and she whispered with increasing panic, "_Castiel!_ The boys are here!"

The only response she got was for him to slide his hands up her back under her shirt, and it was the awful realization that he was going for her bra clasp that gave her the strength to wrench away.

Well—halfway. She managed to get partly off of him, her knee on the floor, but he followed relentlessly after her, pinioning her other thigh between his own and rubbing wildly against her even as he gripped her tightly and struggled to work her jeans down over her hips.

"Dammit, stop humping my leg!" she hissed, using one hand to hold up her pants against his efforts to get them off, the other to try pry him off of her.

_How do you turn this thing off?_ she thought desperately. His arms were like clinging vines, wrapping tight around her and holding her prisoner. She fought her way down onto the floor and rose up on her knees, wrestling with his clutching arms and batting his hands away from her chest, but it was only when she accidentally caught sight of Dean's appalled expression that she summoned a burst of wolfish strength and managed to break free.

She slapped away the hand going for one last fondle, ducking away from the other one that was going for her waistband again and told him to "slow _down_, you animal!" She clambered to her feet and hurriedly zipped up her pants to thwart his efforts to get them down, her face burning when she accidentally met Sam and Dean's eyes. She looked quickly away, and was aghast to see that Cas's wild-eyed stare was fixed on her, and that he was tensing as though to spring.

She yanked his tie over her head and wadded it up and chucked it at him; it caught him full in the face, startling him. "Just—just hold that thought," she begged him, holding her hands out placatingly, trying to snap him out of it, "and we'll finish this conversation later."

Cas was blinking up at her, his eyes still not quite focused, but at least he didn't look like he was about to jump her again—although he was still staring at her chest. Mortified, she snatched her shirt closed, only to realize that there was no way to _keep_ it closed, little tufts of tattered thread the only remains of her poor buttons, the victims of one horny little angel. Her face flushed darkly when she saw Sam and Dean watching the whole tableau with a sort of horrified (and in Dean's case, slightly intrigued) fascination; she had no recourse at this point but to simply say "screw it" and try to brazen it out.

Running her fingers through her angelically-mussed hair, she smiled fit to split her face and said with canned cheerfulness, "Come on, guys—I'm starving." She pretended that she hadn't a care in the world, just never mind her tits hanging out, and took the bags that her nose told her held their lunch over to the table in the kitchenette.

They didn't follow her. She didn't say anything more, didn't look up, just plopped the bags down on the table and started rummaging through them. The tension was so thick that she'd need a chainsaw to cut it; as it were, she knew she was rattling the brown paper sacks much louder than she needed to, anything to make noise and break up that heavy, accusing silence.

Her hair suddenly stood on end as the room was filled with a crackling surge of energy and the sound of rustling wings; the air in the all around them seemed to _flex_, and then with a pop rushed back to fill the now-empty void where Cas had once stood.

Her jaw almost dropped in outrage. _That feathery bastard bailed on me!_ she fumed, even as she wished she could do the same—or that Cas had at least had the decency to take her with him. She was _so_ taking this out of his winged little ass the next time she saw him.

After a moment more, she felt as much as heard the boys come up to the table, flanking her on both sides. She wouldn't look at them—she _refused_. Not when Dean swung out a chair and straddled the seat, leaning on the back to regard her impatiently, nor when Sam slammed the cases of beer down on the table next to her. She was concentrating on her cheese fries and her burger, thank you very much, and she was _not_ going to give them the satisfaction of seeing her red face.

"So?" It was Sam, and she finally looked up. His face was expectant, and she thrust her chin out at him.

"So what?" she repeated indignantly, unwrapping her sandwich with far more force than necessary.

Dean looked off in disbelief before turning back to her. "Seriously?" he demanded, screwing up his face as words failed to describe what he was seeing, and he settled for waving a vague hand at her open shirt. "That is what you two do when we're gone?"

Her face flushed hotly, but as she glanced involuntarily down at her many, _many_ heavenly hickeys, she remembered _getting_ them, and she was helpless to stop the smirk that curled her lips, and she looked Dean dead in the eye and said, "We do now."


End file.
